In the repair of the bodies of motor vehicles, numerous replacement and repair parts are needed to make appropriate repairs. Frequently, parts removed from an auto under repair may be reusable and need to be stored pending reinstallation.
In order to make the repair of a given vehicle as efficient as possible, it is useful to collect the necessary items to make the body repair and to transport these parts to a centralized location near the work site. In order to do this, the repair worker must either make several trips from the parts department to the work site where the auto to be repaired is located, or the repair worker may take a wheeled cart or dolly to the parts storage area, collect the necessary parts for the repair, place them on the wheeled cart and then transport the cart to the location of the auto to be repaired. One example of a prior art wheeled cart is the PARTS CADDY™ auto parts cart distributed by Collision Services, Inc., of Hudson, Iowa (see http://www.partscaddy.com/page1.html.) This wheeled cart is a four-post shelf unit supported on casters with a cage surrounding the lower shelf. Hook members may hang from the upper perimeter of the shelf unit. This type of cart is limited in the size of parts which may be stored within the cart, with large panel parts only transportable by hanging them from the hook members on the exterior of the cart. This prior art cart does not provide adequate protection from damage for large body panels moved in the transport process. No adjustability of shelves is provided. In addition, this existing cart has a fairly large footprint regardless if it is in use or not.
A versatile auto parts transport cart is needed which can store large panels without risk of their swinging about the transport cart. A cart which includes features to store long narrow parts, as well as small fasteners of various varieties, would be advantageous. In addition, a transport cart for auto body repair parts which may be nested with others of the same type would reduce the space needed when the cart is not in use.